First haircut in years a nice one for Maggie

September 01, 2006|IDA CHIPMAN Tribune Correspondent

PLYMOUTH -- "It was kinda hard to part with," Maggie Morrow said. Her long, wavy dark-brown hair was sitting in two 10 1/2 -inch pigtails on her lap. After all, she'd been growing her hair long since the fourth grade. Now she was about to enter the seventh grade at Lincoln Junior High with an entirely changed look. "Actually," mom Chris Morrow, said "we'd been talking about making an appointment since June, but Maggie just wasn't ready to have it done yet." She'd even toyed with cutting it off just before this year's annual Relay for Life. But then, it wasn't time yet. It's like giving up something that is a part of you. Maggie had already made the commitment in her mind. Ever since Mary Ann Hickman, an agent in her dad's insurance company, had come down with cancer and lost her hair after chemotherapy, Maggie planned to donate her own hair to Locks of Love. "She was my inspiration," she said. An honor student, Maggie is very much involved in sports. She plays basketball, soccer, softball and runs cross country. She's used to having her full ponytail bouncing around behind her. No more. Rio Hafke, the hair stylist at Alena Renee's Salon, 200 Michigan St. in downtown Plymouth, first washed and dried Maggie's long hair. She separated it into two pigtails and cut them off -- one by one. The scissors made a strange, heavy sound. "This is the first Locks of Love I've done in Plymouth," said Rio, who moved here recently from New Jersey. The tresses will be carefully placed in a plastic bag, sealed and put into a padded envelope for shipment by Maggie's mom. "Locks of Love will fashion the donated hair into wigs for children," she said. As a special reward for her generosity, Chris is taking her daughter out for a pedicure. Maggie, whose neck feels nothing if but a little naked, smiled. A member of the Angels Girls' Club of St. Michael's Catholic Church, she is definitely following their tenets. "I'll do it again," she said, happy with her new look. "As soon as it grows out long enough."